


Perhaps in the Spring

by Kitsfics



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Transformation, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, No Angst, Sandor is a history professor, Sansa is kind of a selkie but she's a bird selkie, Smut Eventually, neurotic inner monologue, neurotic sex, safe sex, voyeruism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27661972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsfics/pseuds/Kitsfics
Summary: History professor Sandor spots an unusual bird one day, all red with a blue breast and blue eyes, who acts oddly human. Then he meets a beautiful woman who is oddly bird-like. Coincidence? Yeah, probably. Right?
Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark
Comments: 26
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Picset!!!

Sandor flopped down on the park bench with a sigh. He ran a hand down his face, scratching his fingers briefly through his short beard. After a few moments, he opened up his satchel, pulled out a paper bag, a thermos, and a paperback book. He glanced at his watch as he unfolded the bag and began to unpack his lunch onto the bench next to him.

It had been a particularly difficult day, which explained why he hadn’t found time for his lunch until almost 3 PM. His first class ran long, his laptop went haywire during his third class, so he’d had to lecture from memory. After his fourth class, he’d had to confront a student who plagiarized his midterm paper, and during his office hours, which were supposed to run noon to two, he sat for an hour as he consoled a crying student, who’d failed her midterm exam after she found her boyfriend cheating on her with her roommate, who also happened to be her best friend. If there was one thing Sandor hated, it was crying people.

Eventually, he got the young woman sorted, offered to let her make up the midterm in a week for partial credit. If she did well on the exam and completed a few extra credit assignments, she would be able to maintain a good grade. He also got her setup for an appointment with a counselor at the campus health center.

“You know it’s going to be alright, don’t you?” he’d asked the girl as he walked her to his office door.

She shook her head. She had actually become one of his favorite students in his sophomore-level Westeros history class. She always sat in the front row, with her mousy-brown hair in a braid, always pushing her glasses up her nose. She took volumes of notes, and almost never spoke in class, but when she did, it was always a very astute observation or critical question.

“No, it’s not.”

“Course it is. One day, you’ll think about this day. You’ll have just published your best-selling book, or won your campaign for office, or founded a non-profit that’s going to change the world. And you’ll think about that absolute wanker and you’ll laugh, remembering that he ever had the power to hurt you.”

She’d stood in his office, a look of utter surprise on her face. “You know I used to think you were scary. I didn’t know you were nice.”

He frowned at that. “Not nice. Maybe a little kind, but only if someone deserves it. Don’t tell anyone.”

He picked up his satchel and passed the long leather strap over his shoulder, then gestured to the door. He locked up, and by the time he turned round, Willa had gone. He walked out the front door of Targaryen Hall, and headed to the small park surrounding a pond.

Sandor unwrapped his sandwich and ate half of it in one giant bite. He reflected that it was probably impractical to be eating lunch at this hour. Since his office hours were over, and his last class for the day was an online class, he could just as easily go home and just have dinner. But he was starving, and he thought he might as well stay that evening and grade more midterms.

Still chewing, he unscrewed the top off his thermos and took a swig of lukewarm tea. Didn’t exactly taste delicious paired with his roast beef sandwich, but he hadn’t had time to switch it for water after his last class.

Once he finished the sandwich, he opened up a bag of crisps, and cracked open his book. He’d bought the book for the title,  _ Dance of the Dragons _ , thinking it was a new nonfiction account of one of his favorite events in history. He kept reading when he realized it was actually a novelization, figuring there was no harm in a little creative license. After the first love scene between Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Daemon, Sandor seriously considered stopping. But little by little, he convinced himself to keep reading. Definitely not for the romance, he told himself. He didn’t want to be the type of person, especially the type of professor, who judged writing based on the genre rather than its merits, or lumped all commercial works into the genre “popular”. And it really was well-written.

Sandor found his place, propped the book open in one hand, eating crisps with the other. He was intent on his reading for several minutes, as the Black Council began. He was really enjoying the writing, and the characterizations. He’d read about these people in old history books for decades, but the way the author got inside their heads, understood them as real people, not words on a dusty page...

As he read, he became dimly aware of a bird chirping and chirping, getting louder and louder. He looked up from his book, tracing the chirping to a bird perched on the park bench across the sidewalk from him. It was perched on the seat of the bench, sitting perfectly still and staring at him.

It was a particularly beautiful bird, though he knew almost nothing about them. A robin maybe? Not a cardinal, unless he was much mistaken. It was a red bird, not very big, but with a bit of blue feathers on its breast.

Sandor frowned. That didn’t seem right. He’d heard of blue robins with a bit of red breast, but never the reverse. The bird trilled at him and Sandor found himself shifting uncomfortably. It almost seemed like this bird was telling him off.

He tried to focus on the book again, but the bird would not cease its shrill harping. He held the book up in front of his face, blocking the bird from view. There was a rustling and a sudden movement of air wafting towards him. He looked up from the book just in time to see the bird swoop up to him, grabbing the mostly empty bag of crisps from his hand.

He swung the book, but stopped himself just in time. It was only a bird, after all, maybe the poor thing was hungry. The bird had grabbed the bag, but only succeeded in knocking it onto the ground. Sandor set the book on top of his bag, pages down so he wouldn’t lose his place, and started to lean forward. The bird was sitting on the ground, three or four feet in front of him, but seemed to take offense from his movements, chattering and chirping at him loudly.

Sandor held up his hands, hoping that somehow the bird would understand the gesture. It calmed somewhat, and Sandor leaned forward toward the bag, picked it up by the corner, and dumped out the remaining crumbs and little shards that Sandor had picked over. The bird chirped happily (it seemed to Sandor, or maybe he was projecting emotion) as it swooped onto the little pile and pecked away.

Sandor chuckled, watching the little thing eat. After a few minutes, she looked up at Sandor, which was strange to him. When had he started to think of it as a female? He had no knowledge to back up the assumption, but she was so small and dainty, and the way she picked at the crumbs, famished but neat and tidy, not one crumb left behind. It made him think of a polite little lady.

The bird suddenly looked at him, and Sandor found himself leaning forward in fascination. It couldn’t be, but the closer he got, far closer than a wild bird would normally let a human get, the more certain he was. The bird had blue eyes.

He’d never seen a bird with blue eyes, didn’t know if it was possible. But then, there it was, so it couldn’t be impossible, could it?

The bird nodded at him, and flew away. Sandor shook his head once, squinted his eyes shut. Was he tired? Hallucinating? Had he gotten so lonely and finally cracked, imagining a social encounter with a winged animal?

He marked his spot in his book, shut the volume, and began packing up his things, picking up all his trash and disposing of it in the nearest wastebasket. He walked back to his office, thinking over the whole encounter.

It was normal to anthropomorphize animals and things. That’s just what humans did. They like to see faces and name appliances, and give them personalities. That explained the strange attribution of a female gender to a sexless animal (at least, sexless as far as he was concerned, since he wouldn’t know a female bird if it shat on him). It even explained thinking of it as nodding (birds don’t nod) or being polite and dainty. But it didn’t explain the strange coloring. He wished, as he unlocked the door to his office, that he’d thought to take out his phone and snap a picture. But he wasn’t very familiar with the thing, and never used it for much except his calendar, his email, and the occasional mobile game to pass the time. Thing was too tiny for his hockey glove hands.

He decided he would do that interweb search thing when he got back to his office, find out if there was such a thing as a red bird with a blue breast, and if a bird could have blue eyes. He’d find out what kind of bird it was, and then he would feel less strange. He supposed that was the professor in him. If he could quantify it, species and genus, it would make him feel better about the whole thing.

He forgot about it until that night, just as he was about to get into bed. He took out his cell phone, the tiny little device he detested, and pulled up the browser.

_ Birds blue eyes _ , he typed, slowly, having to backup occasionally to fix mistakes. He hit the search button, and was relieved to find that birds can have blue eyes. Of course, that made sense. Just a matter of eye pigmentation. He hit the search bar again and searched for  _ bird red body blue breast  _ and hit search again.

No results. None for a bird with red back feathers and blue breast feathers. There were plenty of the reverse, for a type of bluebird, some parrots and exotic species.

Sandor locked the phone and set it on the nightstand, plugging it in to charge. He pulled back the covers and lay down, flat on his back in the middle of his queen sized bed. He stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes, then finally leaned over and turned off the lamp. He lay in the dark, looking up at the square of dim light from the streetlight outside his flat. Trees moved in the breeze outside, casting dancing shadows in the square of dim light.

He lay awake for a while, staring up at the ceiling, then turning this way and then the other. Wondering the whole time why he couldn’t stop thinking about a bird.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor just wants to read his damn book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Picset-
> 
> Thanks to TheCatTheWall and TheRedWulf for brainstorming!
> 
> Also added a tag for voyeurism. I may continue to add tags as the story progresses, so please keep checking.

Sandor looked at his watch as his class filed out of the lecture hall. A beginning level Westeros History class: not his favorite thing to teach, but he had to do two a year, same as the other associate history professors at King’s Landing College. Sandor packed up his bag, and left as soon as the wave of students abated. A few spoke to him, but most were used to his taciturn nature by now, three months into the semester.

He left the building by a side door, avoiding the crowd of students making their way outside through the main entrance. He headed through the paths to his usual park bench, sat down, and began to unpack his lunch, which had gotten sadly squished in his satchel when he forgot and shoved his thermos of tea on top of it.

He set the tea aside and began unpacking the brown paper lunch bag to determine the extent of the damage. Not too bad, the sandwich was a little flattened, but still edible. He tore open the paper wrapping, and pulled out  _ Dance of the Dragons _ . He flipped open the book, tucking his bookmark (a spare bit of receipt paper) in another random section of the book, held the book open between his thumb and pinkie finger, and took a large bite of turkey and swiss on rye, right as he happened to look over the top of his book and make eye contact with a beautiful woman sitting across the little walking path from him.

He jumped a little before forcing himself to relax. She’d just surprised him, is all, but he must have been too engrossed in unpacking his lunch and pulling out the book to notice her approach and sit down. He hid behind his book for a few moments as he hastily chewed and swallowed his mouthful, then set the sandwich down on his lap, protected it in its parchment paper wrapper. He quickly unscrewed the thermos one-handed, holding the thermos between his forearm and chest, then took a quick swig of the liquid, forgetting it was still hot. He choked again on the liquid, probably scalding a few taste buds, but it quickly cooled down enough for him to force it down.

“Are you all right?” the woman’s voice floated down to him. Sandor lowered the book enough to see her concerned face.

“Oh, er- yes, fine. Thank you. Lovely morning.”

The young woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, though a small smile ghosted across her mouth. “It’s afternoon, actually. And it’s been raining all day.”

“Right.”

Sandor cleared his throat and tried to return his attention to his book and his lunch. This was incredibly difficult, however, as the woman seated across the walking path was a) the strangest person he’d seen in quite a while b) just sitting there staring at him, and c) she was probably the most beautiful woman Sandor had ever seen.

It was easy to tell she was beautiful, long red hair, not just auburn, but bright, flaming red. Her skin was porcelain white, with a generous smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Blue eyes were framed by long dark lashes, lips of ruby red, all that jazz. It was harder to tell why she struck him as strange.

She was dressed a little strangely, he supposed. She wore a pair of red pants, not denim, but some kind of cottony material. Even from where she was sitting, he could tell it clung to all of her curves. Adding to the striking crimson was a bright blue top. Like a robin’s egg, or the sky in the mountains, how it looked bluer in the thin air. It was made of a thin, almost see-through material, like gauze, her arms bare. Over it all, she wore some kind of wrap, or shawl.

The shawl was beautiful, even he could see that and appreciate its delicacy. It was clearly handcrafted, knit maybe? Or just embroidered? It was blue and red, blue at the top fading to a dark wine-red at the edges. It was shaped like two bird wings, each feather individually shaped, iridescent and radiant.

He thought about it while he ate, or tried to anyway, with her staring at him over his now-abandoned book. What was so strange about her?

Not just her clothes, although they were certainly odd. But the way she didn’t appear to have any belongings with her. After seeing hundreds upon hundreds of students at the college, he knew that students came with stuff, lots of stuff: books, notebooks, laptops, phones, headphones, snacks, beverages both hot and cold, scarves, hats, gloves, sometimes even pillows. It was like being away from their dorm rooms for more than 15 minutes required them to pack up all their gear and bring it with them in huge backpacks and messenger bags, like turtles who carried all their possessions with them through the world.

But then again, was she a student? She looked young enough, maybe. And yet, something about her looked far more mature than any student he had taught. She was so self-aware and poised. Even the way she sat was strange, perched on the end of the bench, back straight, hands on her lap, feet together. And still watching him, hardly blinking. Wearing pants and a sleeveless shirt on a cold, rainy day, when he was feeling a little chilly in his boots and thick sweater.

Suddenly it occurred to Sandor. If it had been raining all day, why were the benches dry?

He’d hardly noticed, but now he saw that she was right, the sidewalk, the grass, the dead leaves clinging to the trees above, all damp and sodden. But they were both perfectly dry.

As if she read his thoughts, she piped up just at that moment. “I dried them before you got here. I know it’s your favorite lunch spot.”

Sandor felt like alarm bells should have been ringing in his head. Was she some kind of stalker? But all he felt was puzzlement.

“Do I know you? Are you one of my students?”

She smiled a little. “No, I don’t think you know me, exactly. But I know you.”

Suddenly Sandor was packing up his things, quickly. This was all getting to be a little weird, and he didn’t need this distraction right now. He all but threw his sandwich, chips, and tea thermos in his bag, followed by his book. His sandwich was hopelessly squashed now, but he wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

He picked up his satchel and stood, registering quickly that her face had fallen, and he felt a momentary pang at disappointing her. He nodded, and mumbled some quick excuse about needing to get to class, and set off walking at a quick trot. He glanced back when he reached the side entrance to Targaryen Hall, to see if she had followed him, but she was still sitting on the park bench, staring straight ahead.

He shook his head. “Probably just some nutter,” he muttered to himself, and headed up to his office to finish his lunch (what was left of it) in peace. Outside his office, he saw Margaery, the department admin assistant, changing the flyers on the bulletin board. She was taking down the notice of a visiting lecturer that Sandor had been looking forward to going to that weekend, and replacing it with a new flyer.

“What happened to Professor Luwin? I was really looking forward to hearing him speak.”

“Some kind of family emergency, I heard. At least we were able to get a replacement on short notice. Although,” she grimaced slightly. “It’s not exactly the type of lecturer we’re used to.”

She tacked up the new notice and left for the next bulletin board. Sandor found himself alone in the hallway, staring into a very familiar face. It was a black and white photo, but the likeness was unmistakable. The flyer told him, in 20 point font, that the Saturday night visiting lecturer this week would be Sansa Stark, discussing her best-selling book  _ Dance of the Dragons _ and her research methods.

Sandor hastily unlocked his office door, set his satchel on his desk, flipped on a desk lamp, and rummaged through his bag for the paperback book. He flipped to the inside of the back cover, and there was the same picture. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but seeing her sweet, smiling face on the book was like a final nail in the coffin.

Now her strange behavior made some kind of sense, and he wished she’d said something. She was probably in town for the lecture, decided to walk around the campus, saw him reading her book, and then…

He frowned. This was where the trail of logic vanished. Then she decided to sit down and stare at him and say that she knew him. And drying the bench before he got there, because she knew it was his favorite? No, that didn’t make sense at all.

He shrugged and sat down again, pulling out the mess of his sandwich, feeling glad now that he hadn’t added too much mustard, or it would have undoubtedly ended up all over the bottom of his bag.

So she was strange. It wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary for academic types to be eccentric. Sure, he’d never met anyone quite that eccentric, but there was Dr Baratheon who was said to prefer his lecture halls kept at exactly 15 degrees Celsius, and Professor Lannister who couldn’t abide gum chewers in her lectures and never shook hands. But pretending to know a random stranger reading her book, or drying off the bench on the off chance that someone reading her book was going to sit down across from her? That was a little strange, even for academia.

Maybe it was a joke. Maybe she just had a weird sense of humor. Either way, Sandor wished he’d known it was her. He wouldn’t have reacted so rudely, for one thing. And it would have been nice to get to talk with her, she was quickly becoming one of his favorite fiction writers.

He sat down to read for the rest of his lunch hour, flipping often to look at her picture on the back cover, something he’d never looked at before that day, but now he couldn’t stop looking. She had a small, enigmatic smile, her face turned almost in full-profile away from the camera, like the photographer had caught her turning toward them or away. It made her seem shy, secretive. She was not looking straight into the camera, but at some point just to the photographer’s left, and the black and white copy managed to catch the sparkle in her eye.

“Get it together!” Clegane growled to himself, shutting the book, throwing it into a drawer, and slamming the drawer shut so hard the window rattled. Just then came a soft, timid knock on his door.

Fuck. He’d forgotten about his office hours. “Come in,” he called, trying to sound welcoming, but failing.

The door opened a crack and a mousy freshman he recognized from his Intro class stuck her head in the door. “Professor? Is now a good time- I can come back…”

“No, it’s fine. Come on in. Just finishing my lunch.” Sandor swept the remains of his meal into the wastebasket and prepared to talk Intro to Westeros History with his student.

  
  


That evening, Sandor walked home, ready to enjoy a long weekend. They had three days off for some southern holiday he didn’t celebrate. He planned to enjoy a night with his book, a glass of Scotch, and then tomorrow he would go to Sansa Stark’s lecture. He thought with terror of the department reception afterwards.

By the time he’d reached the house, his anxiety was spiking. He could just see it. She spots him from across the room, face angry, asks him why he was so rude to her, loudly and in front of all the senior professors.

Sandor sighed as he let himself into his small home, two bedroom, squeezed in between two much more opulent Victorian-style houses. It was tiny, old, with a questionable water heater a backyard the size of a handkerchief, but it was his, and the most that he could afford on his associate professor’s salary. His cat, Stranger, meowed from the back of the house. He heard him drop from his favorite spot on a shelf in the office, then pad his way to the living room to greet his owner.

Sandor bent down and picked up the skinny back cat, who scrambled up his arm to perch on his shoulder. He’d noticed the scrawny thing in a flier on campus, asking if anyone was missing a cat found on campus, just outside Targaryen Hall. Sandor had promptly called the number and gave his name and contact information, telling the groundskeeper who was temporarily fostering the little kitten to call him if no one came forward in a few weeks. No one did, and so Sandor became the proud owner of a one-year old tomcat.

Stranger bucked his head against the back of Sandor’s head a few times, sniffing him inquisitively until Sandor was giggling at the curious feline’s ticklish whiskers. Satisfied at whatever he smelled, Stranger jumped down to the floor and stalked away. He would be back as soon as Sandor settled on the couch to read, curling up in Sandor’s lap. But for now, Stranger would return to his perch to watch for birds and squirrels in the backyard.

Sandor mounted the stairs to the second floor, to his tiny bathroom and bedroom. He undressed quickly, grabbed a few towels, having decided to take a shower to de-stress.

His shower ended up being several minutes shorter than he’d intended, as the hot water cut out inexplicably after ten minutes. He yelped, and bolted from the shower, carefully jumping over the edge of the ancient claw-foot tub to the bath mat streaming water over the floor. He cursed as he leaned over to wet a washcloth in the icy stream, wiping away the last of the suds from his back before turning off the water and pulling the shower curtain back across with a frustrated grunt.

He turned toward the window to find a bird perched on the ledge, calmly staring at him. They stared at each other for a minute, then Sandor pulled his towel from the rack next to the sink, and began drying off.

What was it with the birds this week? First that one in the park, then this one, another red bird with a blue breast.

He frowned as he wrapped the towel around his waist. The bird’s eyes seemed to follow his motions. It couldn’t possibly be the same bird could it?

He slowly approached the window. The bird extended her wings and began to fly away, but Sandor was able to verify blue eyes before she escaped. He shook his head, drying his hair with another towel.

“Crazy birds,” he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like it! Shenanigans will commence shortly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sandor attends Sansa's lecture, and they share a few drinks at the reception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I was figuring some plot stuff out. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

Sandor fiddled with his tie as he walked into the lecture hall. He normally didn’t wear one, but the faculty were all expected to attend an informal reception after a visiting lecture. And he always wanted to impress the head of his department, since that was one of the quickest ways to work his way to a tenured position.

He saw her at the front of the hall, speaking with the ranking history professor, Davos. Olenna Tyrell had a fearsome reputation, some called her the dragon lady, and most of the time she lived up to her nickname. She ran her department with the exacting rigor of a drill sergeant, and younger staff learned to stay on her good side.

Davos was one of the few faculty who didn’t seem phased by Olenna. He taught ancient Westeros history, but was well-read on everything. He was the one who stayed longest at the post-lecture receptions, smoking a cigar and speaking animatedly with the junior and associate professors. He was even friendly with the grad students.

Sandor walked forward to pick a seat, but groaned internally as he saw Petyr spot him and make a beeline for him, brushing off some students as he walked.

Petyr Baelish had to be Sandor’s least favorite person, possibly in the entire world. Where Davos was friendly and welcoming, Petyr was cold and snide. He was everything Sandor disliked about the history academia: snobby, dismissive, and religiously defended the classics while refusing to acknowledge any contrasting point of view. In short: a real cunt.

But, he had seniority over Sandor, so he played nice.

“Clegane,” Petyr insisted on calling everyone by their last names, a tradition Sandor found very “boys club” for no particular reason that he could put his finger on. “Can you believe who they replaced Luwyn with? This romance author?”

Sandor felt his jaw clench, and made a special effort to relax. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. We want to be open to all different kinds of intellectual experiences, right?”

Petyr frowned. “Intellectual? I guess, if that’s the kind of thing you like.”

Sandor had just about had enough of Petyr’s snide comments, seniority or no. “History presented in a fun and engaging way by someone who clearly has a deep and thorough knowledge and love for the subject? Yeah, that’s my thing. Excuse me.”

Sandor hoped he wouldn’t come to regret that brush-off. He knew that Baelish was the current darling of the history department, but he really couldn’t see why. Besides, if career advancement depended on cozying up to that guy, Sandor would rather stay and associate professor forever.

He returned to surveying the rows, ignoring Baelish’s indignation, and spotted Meera and Yara sitting a few rows back from the front. He made his way towards them.

Meera noticed him approaching, looked up and smiled warmly. “Sandor, hello!”

He couldn’t help smiling back, Meera’s good moods were always infectious. She was also an associate history professor, although she specialized in the indigenous people of Westeros, known as the Children. She also studied marginalized groups like the wildlings, and the crannogmen, from whom she was descended. It was a small field of study, but fascinating and quickly growing, thanks to Meera’s efforts to bring attention to the fact that The First Men were not actually the first people to live in Westeros.

At five feet three inches tall, they would sometimes get jokes about their over two foot height difference in the hallways of the college, and Meera always laughed them off, occasionally flipping them off behind their back, to Sandor’s amusement. With her diminutive stature and “cute” looks, she didn’t fit the image of a stereotypical history professor, but then, neither did Sandor. He had a feeling most people would peg him as a PE teacher before they guessed history. It was Sandor’s and Meera’s sense of being different from the rest that laid the foundation of their unusual friendship.

“Hello Meera, Yara. Can’t stand academia today, mind if I sit with you?”

“Of course, have a seat,” Meera invited, and Sandor sat down near Meera, but with one seat between them, so he would have room to stretch his legs out.

Yara looked up from her book. She was also an associate professor, well on her way to tenure, but in the art department. Her textile installations were supposed to be groundbreaking, though understanding art was like trying to speak a foreign language, to Sandor. He appreciated the time and effort that went into the production, but everything else was over his head. But Meera was the closest thing he had to a friend in the history department, and Yara was her partner. He genuinely liked Yara as well, as she never hesitated to make scathing comments about his colleagues that amused Sandor and scandalized Meera (when uttered within earshot of any colleagues besides Sandor).

“Maybe I’m just a lesbian, but there seem to be far more nubile young women at this lecture than the others we’ve attended.”

Meera rolled her eyes to the heavens, and smiled at an older woman who had just taken a seat in front of them.

“Well, you’re not wrong, though, as ever, tact appears to have eluded you. But yes, the history department, for the first time in recent memory, has actually invited a popular historian, and it seems to have had an effect on the student body.”

Yara giggled and muttered to herself before returning to her book, “Student body.”

Sandor couldn’t help laughing at Yara’s juvenile humor, and the way it clearly vexed and amused Meera in turn. Meera and Sandor made small talk about the department until it was time for the lecture to begin.

The lights dimmed slightly, and Olenna climbed a small flight of stairs and crossed the stage to the podium.

“Good evening,” she boomed. When the small talk didn’t immediately cease, she glowered across the hall.

“Quiet, please. Quiet down,” and paused, with that signature high school teacher expression that warned she could wait all night, until silence fell across the lecture hall.

“Thank you,” she said with a frown that belied her words of gratitude.

“Tonight, King’s Landing College has the pleasure to welcome a noted historian and author.” She spoke the word “author” like it left a bad taste in her mouth, but seemed determined to pursue her introduction as though nothing were unusual about this speaker. “Dr. Stark earned her bachelor’s degree in art history from King’s Landing College, followed by a master’s from Oldtown College and a PhD from Winterfell College in Westeros history. She has written numerous academic papers on the Targaryen civil war, and recently published a best-selling novel fictionalizing the events of that time frame. The novel is named  _ Dance of the Dragons _ , and the term is quickly becoming synonymous with the time period itself, thanks to her scholarly efforts. It has been at the top of the King’s Landing Best Seller list for almost five months. Please welcome, Dr Sansa Stark.”

The audience applauded as the young woman from the park took the stage, and a low hush of dozens of people speaking at once uncut the sound of clapping. It was not hard to guess what they were talking about. Sandor felt his applause slow, then stop altogether as he stared at her.

She was undeniably gorgeous, closer to what Sandor would imagine a model or an Instagram influencer looked like, not a historian. Not that he didn’t know any women who were historians, he knew plenty. But none of them wore electric blue jumpsuits, especially not electric blue jumpsuits with a neckline that plunged from clavicle to navel. The legs of the jumpsuit were tight-fitting, ending just above the ankle, and she wore a pair of casual gold flats. She wore almost no jewelry, just a small red pin or broach on her left breast. Her bright red hair was pulled back, and appeared to be secured by a plain yellow pencil, with the hair wrapped around it somehow and then the pencil stuck through the coil of hair to secure it. As she took the podium and adjusted the microphone, Sandor could see the eraser sticking up behind her head.

“Yowza,” Sandor heard Yara mutter under her breath.

Sansa seemed completely oblivious to the effect her appearance was having on an academic lecture hall, or perhaps it was that she simply did not care. She smiled at the audience disarmingly and spoke into the microphone.

“Hello, good evening. Thank you for having me.”

Sandor kept waiting for the moderator to come out onto the stage. Visiting guest lecturers almost always had a moderator, to facilitate the discussion on “meet the author” events such as these, where the lecturer was not presenting a paper or a lecture on a specific topic. Choosing to forgo the moderator meant she had higher than usual confidence in her speaking abilities, and her ability to interact with the audience and answer questions.

“So, I’ve never done one of these before. Usually if I’m up on a stage like this, in my academic life, I’d be presenting a paper to a bunch of old dudes,” Sandor winced slightly at that, but the students in the audience laughed nervously, “or lecturing on a specific subject to a class of people who all signed up to learn about a certain time period. So forgive me if this is rambly or if I go off-topic, but I thought, since I’m mostly here to talk about my book and my research methods, that I’d start by giving a little background on myself and why I chose to start the project.”

Sansa adjusted the microphone slightly before beginning again. “As Dr Tyrell said in her introduction, I did begin as an art history major, which is basically a really great major if you don’t know what you want to study.” She paused and chuckled along with a small smattering of students. “I feel like we have some fellow art history majors right over here, don’t we?”

She pointed to a few students sitting in the back. Sandor turned his head and saw they were wearing all black and giggling. “Don’t ever be ashamed to study something random or different in undergrad. The good thing about undergrad is that it really has very little impact on life, career, or postgraduate studies.” She paused again for laughter, seeming to think through her last statement.

“Sorry, Dr Tyrell. Don’t kill me.” More laughter, this time from the faculty, too.

“But I love my art history degree, and it did give me certain researching quirks that helped me later in life. Art can be a wonderful window into the everyday life of the period, and an amazing inspiration. It was art that ignited my passion for the time period I wrote about in  _ Dance of the Dragons _ . Paintings depicting that time period are so real, so vivid. You look at them and you can feel the terror of battle, the heat of dragonfire, you can see the passions of the players of the time.”

She held her hands out in front of her, she seemed to like talking with her hands, gesturing to emphasize her points. Sandor realized as she paused that the lecture hall was completely silent.

“But it occurred to me, when I took my required gen ed history course from Professor Seaworth,” murmurs of appreciation from the students for the beloved teacher, “that the characters in this time period were nowhere near as vivid for me in the history books as they were in art. Who were these people? What made them battle and love and scheme?”

She shrugged one elegant shoulder, hands now resting on the podium, unusually still, now, as she was starting to wind down her introduction. “That’s what I wanted to know. And the more I read, the more I felt called towards history.

“Eventually, though, bare-bones history wasn’t exciting me anymore. I still wanted to know what these extraordinary people were like, and history books gave me all the information, who, what, where and when, and sometimes how, but why? That was harder to find in history. So one day I began writing about Rhaenyra and Aegon the Elder, tried to imagine them as real people.”

She waved her hand dismissively and smiled. “Anyway, enough lecturing for today. What questions do you have for me? I think there’s ushers with microphones?” She held up one hand and shaded her eyes to look out into the audience. Two ushers stood at the front of the auditorium, and soon, a young student stood, a pretty blond girl.

“Yes, I think we have a question there,” Sansa pointed and the usher brought the student the mic.

“Hello, yes, I was just wondering what your research techniques are. Do you read about specific subjects, or do you just read history books from the time period?”

“Good question, yes I read a lot. Like, a lot! And I just try to read everything, because you never really know what information you’ll need down the line, you know? For example, I never planned to include a section on costuming and making fabric, but at some point after the formation of the Black Council, I wanted the reader to understand the intense labor that went into the making of one of Queen Rhaenyra’s dresses. That informs her character, the fact that she wore on her back the labor of dozens of peasants, representing months of hard work, and then she changed into another equally sumptuous gown for dinner. And rarely, if ever, wore the same dress again. It puts her in a very different light than, say, Elinda, her lady in waiting, who wears much simpler gowns, and even different still is Sybil, the queen’s chambermaid, who likely owned only a handful of simple shifts that she wore in rotation.”

She stopped gesturing and laid her hands on the podium again, and groaned at herself. “Aggh, sorry, tangents. Anyway, you asked about researching techniques. Yes, I pretty much read any books I can about the time period. I also read a lot of other fiction of the time period, watch movies, listen to music. I catalouge too, anytime I read a book, even for fun, I take copious notes and an assistant enters them into a computer program where I can go in and search for, oh, 3rd century gown, and all of the times I’ve read a book or watched a movie with a 3rd century gown will come up. And then there’s the image database, I have thousands of them saved to a hard drive. Bit of an electronic hoarder, really.”

The young girl sat down, and the other usher hurried to where a young man had stood, farther back.

“Hope I answered your question, in a roundabout way, at least,” Sansa chuckled in a slightly self-deprecating tone. She spotted the student and pointed to him. “Yes, you have a question?”

“Hi. I was just wondering how long you’ve been writing, and if you’d tried writing any fiction before this.”

“Yes, absolutely. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember really, journaling and sketching, I do draw a little bit, but it’s terrible and no one gets to see it.” More laughter. “And I think I always used to write little stories about things I saw. So, if I saw a cat, I wondered where it had come from, where it lived, what it thought about people. And I was lucky, my teachers always encouraged me to keep writing. Honestly, it doesn’t matter when you start, though. I didn’t come back to fiction until a few years ago, and it was just like getting back on a dragon. I mean bike,” she amended, to giggles.

Sandor found he was coming perilously close to being enamored by the time the lecture ended. He admired everything about her, from her smile, her dancing eyes in the bright stage lights, the way little pieces of her hair came loose from it’s updo and the way she pushed them back behind her ear in the middle of answering a question about dragon anatomy.

Her knowledge seemed to be endless and encyclopedic. She seemed to know about everything from the names and family backgrounds of all the big players in the Targaryen civil war, as well as their personalities and characteristics, but the names and origins of minor characters as well, and could recount them upon request. The students clearly loved her, he didn’t think he’d ever come to one of these events where the students were so quiet and attentive, never a phone pulled out or any side conversation. Most of the time, the only undergrad students in attendance were there for extra credit that the intro professors gave out to incentive attendance.

Eventually, Olenna stood at the front of the auditorium, and Sansa noticed immediately.

“My goodness, has it been an hour and a half already? Can’t believe I blathered on so long. I truly want to thank you for this wonderful opportunity and your kind attention tonight. I’ll be at the campus bookstore tomorrow to sign books or answer more questions, and then there’s a reading that evening, I hope to see you there.” She grinned again, and Sandor felt his heart skip a beat. “Good night!”

Olenna climbed the steps to the stage and shook Sansa’s hand, and escorted her offstage. Sandor had already seen a few students get up and begin to walk to the edge of the stage, but when Dr Stark showed no signs of re-emerging, they reluctantly exited the auditorium.

Sandor and Meera stayed behind, discussing the Q&A, as it could hardly be called a lecture, in low, admiring tones.

“You didn’t tell me she was gonna be so hot,” Yara interjected at a significantly louder volume than necessary. The older woman in front of them, who had just stood to make her way from the auditorium, glared at them again.

“You really have no internal filter, do you?” Meera asked exasperatedly.

“I do, I’ve just never cleaned it.”

They finally stood to leave. Meera kissed Yara goodbye outside of the lecture hall, since Yara and a room full of stiff-shirt history professors was a recipe for disaster, career-wise. Besides, spouses weren’t usually invited to these functions. They walked the short distance to Olenna’s home, where the receptions were traditionally held.

It was a beautiful Victorian house, well-maintained and beautifully furnished. It was full of all the things Sandor wanted someday, dark wood bookcases, old books that smelled old, thick soft carpets underfoot. Lamps throughout the library lit the room, and Olenna was running a small bar in the corner, as everyone filtered in. Eventually, the job would be taken over by her research assistant, but she liked to greet people personally. Cigar smoking was banished to the front porch, but the scent of heavy, thick tobacco wafted in from time to time.

“Hello Sandor, scotch?”

“Yes please.”

She poured a double-serving of deep amber liquid into a small, heavy-bottomed glass, and handed it to Sandor. “Neat, right?”

He thanked her for the drink and made way for Meera. Olenna remembered her drink of choice as well, serving her a Bombay gin and tonic with a wedge of lime. Sandor looked around the room, seeking out familiar faces in the crowd.

They weren’t all history professors, some were from other, similar departments who shared quarters in Targaryen Hall. Besides the doctoral students from the history department, there were a few English professors, and two who specialized in creative writing, fitting given the guest lecturer. There were some Economics professors, who Sandor didn’t even think had attended the lecture, but were always welcome to come to the reception anyway. They swirled brandy snifters, clamped unlit cigars between their teeth until they could finally be bothered to go outside to actually smoke them.

Meera and Sandor drifted to the edges of the room, inspecting the books on the shelves to have something to do. A murmur lifted, and Sandor’s gaze swung to the door, pulled there like a magnet by the beautiful Sansa Stark. Her hair was down now, whether purposefully let down, or because she had lost the pencil holding it up, Sandor couldn’t say. But it cascaded in soft waves that reflected the lamplight and light of the crackling fire. Sandor couldn’t help but wonder what it smelled like, if it was as soft as it looked.

He noticed her broach seemed to be missing, but that she now had the same scarf draped around her neck, the one that looked like bird’s wings.

“Sandor, you are staring at her,” Meera’s voice drifted through his miasma. Sandor snapped his gaze away from Sansa, to his companion’s smiling, teasing face.

“I was not. At least, no more than anyone else.”

“I know, but it was weird. Not that I blame you for having a crush, mind you.”

“I don’t have a crush,” Sandor scoffed, sipping his drink. He watched as Olenna poured Sansa a glass of Arbor gold, before taking her on a quick tour of the house, and introducing her to the King’s Landing faculty she didn’t already know, scattered in different sections of the first floor. She would probably be occupied for a while.

One of the doctoral students came by, offering to top off their drinks, but staying after they declined to discuss the lecture.

“Wow, she’s really something, isn’t she?” the willowy student, whose name was something like Lily or Lillian, gazed adoringly at Sansa as she shook hands with the economics professors.

Meera and Sandor grunted in agreement. Sandor realized the student was the same one who had asked the first question during the Q&A session. Sandor asked her about the book, if she liked it and when she had first read it.

She lit up and explained that she’d been given a copy by a friend for her birthday, that it was her favorite book that year. “I’ve read it twice!” she confided with a glimmer in her eyes before making her excuses and heading to the next group to fetch refills.

Meera smiled and shook her head as she sipped her drink. “She’s a rock star!”

Sandor agreed. He had almost worked up the nerve to tell Meera about his strange encounter with the author, when Meera drained her drink.

“I’m gonna get out of here. Tell Olenna I say goodbye.”

“You sure you won’t stay?” Sandor was aghast at being left alone. He usually hated these receptions and would have loved the excuse to leave early, but he wanted to stay, in case he had the opportunity to apologize to Sansa.

“Nah, I’ve been feeling under the weather, I should go home and let Yara baby me,” she said with a smile.

“Tell her I said she’s a loser.”

She laughed drily, assuring him she would, then Sandor was alone. He cursed under his breath, before heading back to the little bar to get a refill of scotch. By that time, most of the senior professors had migrated back inside from smoking, so Sandor stepped out for a little air. He only stayed for five or ten minutes, though, because then the economics professors went out to smoke, and their cigars made him want to gag.

When he came back in, the mood of the library had changed somewhat. The space was open to a sitting room at the back of the house, that was dark and a little cold. Every time he had visited Olenna’s house, usually for a post-lecture reception, everyone naturally gravitated towards the library. It was brighter and warmer, with the fire going as needed. That’s also where the bar was set up and small hors d'oeuvres were served. But now, for some reason, most of the professors were in the other room, and, by necessity, since the doctorate students were serving the professors, many of them were in this room as well. Olenna was not in sight, and Sansa was standing by the fire. She was all alone.

Sandor frowned as he realized the history staff were being snobs. Before he could think (or overthink) his decision, he strode over to Sansa, who looked up and smiled. “Sandor,” she greeted him, which was unsettling, sure, but also made his cheeks flush.

“Hello. I don’t know if we’ve actually met,” he stammered slightly as he held out his hand.

She adopted a slightly mollifying expression, the kind one might wear when handed a banana by a small child. Being informed that it was a phone call, one would of course hold the banana to one’s ear and begin a pretend conversation, because that is what one does. In the same way, Sansa shook Sandor’s hand and said playfully, “I’m Sansa Stark. Nice to meet you.”

And then she winked.

“Sandor Clegane,” he replied, relieved that he remembered his name.

She grinned. “Now we’ve met.”

“Do you know me from somewhere?”

Her grin faltered. “You don’t remember?”

“Well, I remember meeting you in the park yesterday, outside Targaryen Hall. I’m sorry if I was rude, I didn’t realize who you were.”

A small smile twisted the corner of her mouth, and Sandor found himself staring at that spot. “You don’t remember seeing me before yesterday?”

He shook his head. “I mean, I guess I saw your picture on the back cover of your book, but I didn’t really look at it.”

“You really don’t recognize me,” she said it more as a statement this time, and shrugged. “Don’t worry, it’ll come to you. So, you’re reading my book?”

She took a sip from her drink, eyes playful over the rim of her glass.

“Yes. It’s very good.”

“Thank you.” She rewarded him with a warm smile, then leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “I don’t think everyone else agrees with you.”

“They’re a little old-fashioned. And pig-headed,” he added, gazing over to where the rest of the history department was gathered in the sitting room, staring at the two of them like he had betrayed their ranks.

“Good traits for Targaryen queens,” she noted sunnily. Sandor wondered if anything flagged her spirits.

“But maybe not history professors.”

“And yet, it’s amazing how often you find them together.”

“Targaryen queens and history professors?” he joked.

“Yes,” she laughed, a pleasant, slightly trilling sound that warmed him throughout.

Davos came over, bearing a fresh glass of wine for Sansa. “Hello, Sansa dear. Brought you more libations. Sorry I was kept away so long.”

Sansa took the full glass of Arbor Gold, and leaned over to hug Davos awkwardly with a glass in each hand. Sandor solicitously took the empty glass, passing it along quickly to a student walking by.

“It’s so good to see you, it feels like it’s been centuries,” Sansa said as she leaned back.

“When did you have Davos for a teacher?” Sandor asked, sipping his scotch.

“Trying to find out how old I am?” she asked with a smile. “It was twenty years ago, right?”

“She was in my Intro class. Asked more questions than they did at both of my doctoral defenses put together.”

Sandor’s eyes skimmed over Sansa’s face. Twenty years ago? That would make her almost forty, but she looked half that age. However, Sandor remembered that wisdom and experience he had sensed about her in the park, that made pinpointing her age difficult.

“Still, you get the credit with sparking my interest in the history department, so I guess I have you to thank for all this.”

Davos waved a hand to brush off the assertion. “Nonsense. You’d have been brilliant, no matter what you chose to do.”

“So, did you read it?” Sansa asked, a wicked glint in her eyes.

Davos rolled his eyes. “Heavens yes. Make an old man blush, why don’t you. It wasn’t enough to just write the characters? You had to write everything?”

Sansa shrugged nonchalantly at this mention of the more risque scenes in her book. “Targaryens were obsessed with sex and sexual purity. It’s a greater sin to omit it and just pretend like they were monks or something.”

Davos shrugged. “At least I’ll be warned for the next one. When’s it coming out?”

“A few months. You coming to my reading tomorrow?”

Davos groaned. “Depends, what part are you reading?”

She grinned wickedly, winking conspiratorially at Sandor to include him. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something salacious enough for the college set.”

“You’ll give me a heart attack. Is that what you want to do, kill your old professor?”

“Hush, you’re spry enough. You’ll outlast us all, I’m sure.”

Sandor grinned into his glass. It was charming to witness their playful banter. He could only imagine what Sansa was like as a student, razor-sharp intellect paired with a good-natured humor that made everything a game. It would have been easy to feel like a third-wheel, with the two of them talking about old times, but Sandor felt just included enough to feel comfortable, without feeling like too much of a heel for not contributing.

Sansa sipped at her wine again, and glanced around the room. It had only been about an hour since the end of Sansa’s lecture, but people were already starting to trickle out. Sandor frowned at the disrespect. Olenna caught his eye from across the room, where she was saying goodnight to Baelish, and shrugged.

“Looks like the party’s winding down,” Sansa observed simply, with no bitterness or rancor in her voice.

Davos took that as his queue, as his eyes flicked between Sansa and Sandor. “Well, I should get these old bones home. I will see you at the reading tomorrow, little bird,” he told Sansa as he leaned in for another hug.

“You better!” she warned with a grin.

Sandor and Davos shook hands, and then Sandor was left alone with Sansa, standing in front of the roaring fire with empty drinks, in an emptying room.

“Well, I should probably head out, too. Wouldn’t look good to be the last one left at my own party.”

Sandor nodded. “It was very nice to meet you. I really enjoyed your lecture.”

Sansa toyed with her empty wine glass for a moment, twirling it between her fingers. Sandor found himself wondering why she was lingering.

“Do you know where the Old Inn is?”

“Sure, it’s on the other side of campus.” It was a shabby run-down place the College had taken over years ago and refurbished. Now it was where they put up guests, visiting lecturers and faculty members, sometimes other important guests.

“Oh. That’s where they put me up, but I’m not sure how to get there from here.”

“Oh, sure. You just want to take a left out of here, then turn right at King’s Landing Place. It’s about five minutes down the road, on the right.”

Sansa pressed her lips together in a smile, tilting her head to one side slightly. She once again had that indulgent look, like it was so cute and adorable that he thought the banana was a phone.

“Hmmm. Maybe you could walk me there? I wouldn’t want to get lost.”

_ Oh. Ohhhh. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Sandor. Did Meera take the brain cell when she left?
> 
> Hope you are enjoying it so far, and thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa invites herself over to Sandor's house

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooo, it's about to get smutty!!!! Added some tags!

Outside, the air had chilled considerably. Sandor worried at first that Sansa would be cold, and wished he had a jacket he could offer her, but she didn’t seem affected by the brisk air. She stood on the front step, and took in a deep lungful of air.

“It’s nice out here,” she observed, tilting her head back to look up at the sky. Sandor peeked up at the stars, bright and brilliant in the velvety dark of the night sky, but right now he only had eyes for Sansa Stark. She looked so small, somehow, her expression open and vulnerable. For a moment, Sandor could imagine what she’d looked like as a child.

After a moment of star-gazing, she stood up on tiptoe and then almost leapt off the porch steps, landing lightly at the bottom. She giggled and executed a perfect pirouette on one foot. Sandor felt his jaw drop open at this display of perfect dancer-like grace.

“Come on, Sandor. Close your mouth before you catch flies,” she admonished with another chuckle, then began walking, heading down the sidewalk to the right of Olenna’s house. Sandor closed his mouth sharply, and scrambled to catch up.

“It’s the other way,” he called to her, jogging briskly until he was walking by her side.

“Is it?” she asked breezily, showing no sign of turning or slackening her pace.

“Y-yes, it’s that way,” he repeated, feeling again like there was something he was missing.

Sansa shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s such a nice night, I thought we could take a walk,” she told him with a grin.

The street they were on was mostly residential at this point, four or five blocks away from the University, in the small suburb district that surrounded the University, fifteen miles from the proper metropolitan King’s Landing borders. Sandor knew most of the houses were owned by faculty, mostly tenured professors who could afford it. These houses were valued at several times his yearly salary. They were older houses for the most part, though some houses boasted new additions or upgrades. When Sansa turned down a side street, Sandor followed, momentarily suspending his questions for the moment as he watched her out of the corner of his eye.

Sansa in motion was truly a thing to behold. The wave and snap of her long red hair as she floated along was enough to befuddle his senses. Her gait was equally entrancing: if he hadn’t known better he would have said she floated rather than walked. When Sansa suddenly stopped walking, he almost ran into her. He had long given up trying to walk next to her, as the sidewalk they were on was narrow and uneven, they both wouldn’t fit if they walked side-by-side.

Sandor blinked and looked around him, feeling like he’d just woken from a dream. He recognized the street, suddenly, the street, the tree, the mailbox, the house. It was his.

“Why are we at my house?” he asked, feeling like a dunce, sure that if he were presented with a mirror, he would recognize that glazed over look of freshmen who weren’t keeping up with the names, dates, places he was lecturing about in an Intro to Westeros History class. When he would ask for questions, the room would be silent, expressions dull and vaguely distressed. They didn’t know what questions to ask, because they couldn’t even grasp what they didn’t know. Sandor felt like that now, knowing as he asked it that it was a stupid question, but not able to put into words why it was a dumb question. Then Sansa flashed him another brilliant smile, and Sandor thought he was close to melting.

“Is it? I didn’t know that.” Sandor suspected this wasn’t true, but her expression was so artless, so innocent, that he couldn’t help but believe her.

“You just happened to stop right in front of my house?”

“Well, I assumed you lived over here somewhere, since this is the neighborhood most of the junior professors live in. Besides, it looks like yours.”

He looked at his house like he’d never seen it before, trying, but failing to see any resemblance. Stranger was in the window at the front of the living room, pacing back and forth across the back of his sofa, tail twitching. That was unusual, he usually preferred the back windows.

“But why did you want to see my house?”

“I thought maybe you would like to invite me in,” she said with that patient tone again. She was toying with her scarf, running the end through her hands, sometimes twisting the end between and around her fingers.

_ Fuck the Seven, she’s hitting on me _ , he suddenly realized. Something of this realization must have shown on his face, because she reached out and tweaked the end of his nose.

“You’re lucky you’re so cute. You do want me to come in, right? I don’t want to force myself where I’m not welcome.”

“No, of course I do. Sorry, I’m not very good at this.” He reached into his pocket for his keys, leading the way up the walk to the front door. As he opened the door, he began to repeat a mantra in his head:  _ get it together, get it together, get it together… _

Once the door opened, Stranger immediately leapt from the back of the sofa and padded over to them, sniffing at this interloper before Sandor could even shut the front door.

“Sorry, don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s usually fairly friendly.” Sandor watched Stranger with wonder, as he flipped on a few lights. Stranger wasn’t exactly sociable, but the few times he’d had work friends over, Meera and Yara, for example, the cat had given a few curious sniffs, allowed himself to be petted, then retreated to his favorite haunt in the back of the house, seeming to be satisfied that the guests knew who was really in charge here.

His behavior with Sansa was completely different, though she didn’t seem surprised. Stranger sniffed at her, face screwed up like he did not like the scent, back subtly arched, tail switching back and forth like a whip.

“Stranger, stop being an asshole,” Sandor admonished him. It seemed like Stranger took that as some kind of cue. He hissed at Sansa slightly, then ran from the room, back to his perch in the back room, ignoring Sandor as he went.

“I’m really sorry, I don’t know why he’s acting like that.”

“Stranger? Is that his name?”

“Yeah, it’s weird. He was a stray, just seemed like the best name for him.”

“Most people would say you’re inviting trouble, giving him such an unlucky name.”

Sandor shrugged. “He’s just a cat. Don’t know how much trouble he can get into.”

With the departure of the cat, Sandor felt himself struggling to find another topic of conversation. What did most people say upon finding themselves alone with a beautiful woman?

“Would you like a drink?” He frowned, remembering the bare state of his liquor cabinet. He’d meant to refill it, but hadn’t found the time. He had nothing to offer her but Scotch or some gin he had from the last time Meera had been over.

“You have any Scotch?” she asked. Sandor nodded, dispelling a sneaking thought that she had read his mind.

“Scotch with a splash of water would be nice.” Sansa looked around herself and started examining the books stacked on top of his coffee table.

Sandor headed to the kitchen, noting as he went that Stranger wasn’t in his usual perch. He shook his head as he took down two rocks glasses, pouring a few fingers of amber liquid into one, then a normal portion into the other. He hesitated, then poured her an equally generous measure. She seemed like a girl who could hold her liquor. He opened the fridge to remove a pitcher of filtered water, adding about a teaspoon of water to each glass.

He returned to the living room to find Sansa had discovered his record player, and had just dropped the needle on a jazzy/blues album. She had removed her scarf, dropping it casually on the back of the sofa. Sandor handed her the glass, then retrieved the fine scarf before Stranger could find it and wreak havoc on the fine yarn. He hung it on a rack of pegs behind the front door, then turned to find Sansa watching him.

She had a strange expression on her face for just a moment, lips slightly parted, eyes wide, slightly breathless. He hardly had time to register her surprise before her features rearranged themselves to a more neutral expression.

“Just didn’t want the cat to get to it,” he explained.

“Thank you.” She slipped out of her shoes, walked to the sofa, and didn’t so much sit as perch on one end of the overstuffed cushion, arranging her long legs under her. She took a sip of her drink, and Sandor rotely followed her movements, barely tasting the Scotch, just feeling that lingering burn down his throat as he sat beside her on the sofa. His weight temporarily pitched Sansa forward towards him, and he felt awkward and too large, limbs too long.

Why hadn’t he bought a full-sized couch, instead of this weird monstrosity that was only a little bigger than a loveseat? At the time, it had seemed perfect for him, and he enjoyed stretching out on it, the wider seat accommodating his large form better than an armchair. Then Sansa laid her hand on his thigh, stretching forward to set her glass on the coffee table. She picked up the book that had been covering the coaster, and leaned back into the corner of the couch, studying the cover.

“I loved this book,” she remarked, thumbing through the contents to his bookmark.

It was about the War of the Ninepenny Kings, a slightly more obscure war, overshadowed as it was by Robert’s Rebellion and the War of the Five Kings that followed. The author made several interesting connections to Robert’s Rebellion, and argued that the passing of the torch from the old heads of Houses Lannister and Baratheon set the stage for the politics and wars of the next centuries.

“Were you always interested in ancient history?” Sandor asked, sipping his drink.

Sansa shrugged, replacing the bookmark and laying the book back on the table. “I’ve always loved every kind of history, but yes, especially ancient.”

“What drew you to that time period?”

Sansa smiled, propping up one leg so she could lean her elbow on her knee, her hand supporting her temple. “It was such an exciting time. And there will never be another like it. Heroes of the age fighting to shape their world, wars fought between houses, with the future of Westeros hanging in the balance. Magic, dragons, chivalry. It’s like a fairy tale.”

Sandor frowned slightly. “That’s a little bit of an over-simplification, isn’t it? Sure, there were heroes, but what about the ordinary people, just trying to live their lives? Seems like a horrible time to be alive. What are your options, go die for some lord you’ve never met? Or if you’re lucky enough, kill everyone you meet until you get too old, and one day you duck too slow. If you were lucky enough to live in relatively peaceful times, you had the options of dying of some disease, or malnutrition, or just plain murder.”

Sandor stopped talking suddenly, feeling a little abashed at his rant.

“It’s the romantic in me,” Sansa replied, and Sandor felt a momentary wash of relief that she hadn’t taken offense. “It was certainly not a fun time to live in, and it was even worse for women. But in many ways, I think people had to live for more. If you knew the odds were good you were going to die early, wouldn’t you want to die for something? Your house or your land or your people? I think people back then, especially the heroes, were built differently, they didn’t think twice about sacrificing themselves for honor or love or ambition. If they had a goal, they didn’t care what it cost them. That’s an awful way to live, in reality, and it meant a lot of people died for someone else’s ambition or vanity. I like the grandeur and the sweep of scale in the ancient days, but it doesn’t make it desirable or good.”

She leaned forward and picked up her drink again, taking a sip, then propping her glass on her knee, leaning her other arm on the back of the couch, fingers combing through her hair. “Of course, it’s silly, really, to think people were that different. I’m sure most people would have rather lived past fifty, got to die in bed at a ripe old age rather than on the battlefield screaming. Several of my professors used to call me naive.”

Sandor sipped his drink, imagining again what she must have been like as a student. “Were you always so contradictory?”

She laughed at that, a bright burst of infectious mirth. “Oh, always! Professor Pycelle chided me for changing my research topic five times.”

Sandor frowned into his drink, the name nagging at him. Where had he read that name before? Then he remembered, reading a paper Pycelle had published that had changed current thinking about the effect of the Iron Bank on Westerosi middle ages, when he remembered what about her casual mention seemed incongruous.

“Didn’t he retire fifty years ago?”

“No, surely not,” she replied calmly, sipping her Scotch.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he did. I read a paper of his in undergrad, but even that article was sixty years old.”

“You must be thinking of a different Pycelle. Can’t be only one, can there?”

Sandor didn’t say anything, but it struck him as highly unlikely that there would be more than one Pycelle in the history academia field. Normally, he’d be tempted to say Sansa had meant one of Pycelle’s kids or something, but Sandor distinctly remembered reading that Pycelle was a maester as well as a scholar, forbidden from either taking a wife or siring children. Maybe he had a niece or nephew, he mused, taking another sip of his Scotch.

The record had ended, the needle moving automatically back to its resting position, the room full of the sound of the record still gently whirring. Sandor would need to either go over and turn off the machine, or manually flip the disc to play the other side. He wondered if Sansa wanted to listen to more music or if now was the time when they would start...whatever it was they were going to do that night.

Sansa seemed to answer his thoughts by tossing back the remainder of her glass’s contents, once more laying her hand on his thigh to push herself forward to deposit the glass on the table before her. When she leaned back, she didn’t move her hand.

“You’re kind of a dork, aren’t you?”

Sandor, who had just begun to drink the rest of his Scotch, choked on the liquid, his throat trying to simultaneously laugh and drink at the same time, causing him to almost inhale the burning alcohol. He had to cough it out for a few minutes, before he could even breathe normally, let alone try for conversation.

“You ok?” Sansa asked, concern in her voice, though her eyes were dancing.

“Yeah, I’ll be alright. Eventually.” He tried to glower at her, but suspected he fell far short of achieving the desired effect. The truth was he was secretly amused by her assertion. While most people looked at him and saw a six and a half foot tall ox of a man, and were intimidated by that fact, the truth was he had never really felt like his physical size had much to do with who he was as a person. And while coaches of many sports had been dismayed by his complete lack of interest in organized sports, he just always felt more comfortable with a book.

Not that he shied away from all physical activity. He did enjoy a good run from time to time, and kept his body in good condition with bi-weekly trips to the gym, all the more important now that had ventured to the other side of thirty. But his broad shoulders and height seemed more of a burden to him than anything else, and he didn’t even really mind the little bit of pudge he’d picked up around his midsection. Vanity was not his sin.

Besides, what was wrong with spending more time at the library than in the gym? He had a head for history and research, not sports or combat, and it always amused him when somebody who didn’t know him well started talking to him about the University’s football team, and how the forward-this offsides-this blah blah blah sports ball team was going to go all the way to whatever that year. He gleefully informed them he didn’t watch football and watched the look of confusion come over their faces. Almost as good as telling people he was a history professor with three degrees. Their eyes would sweep him over and they’d get that confused look in their eyes.

“I thought you were going to say you were a security guard,” one woman had told him, on one of the last few outings to the bar with his fellow associate professors. Sandor had quit going shortly thereafter.

“To answer your question, yes, I’m a geek, a nerd, a dweeb. Don’t let the exterior fool you,” he told Sansa.

“That’s good advice,” she said with a smile. Before he could respond, she’d leaned forward, one hand on his chest for balance, and kissed him.

It was a simple, sweet kiss at first, her lips lingering on his no more than a moment, her eyes fluttering closed at first. Then she leaned back slightly, opening her eyes to look up at him. Up close he could see her eyes weren’t completely blue, there was a ring of pale green around the pupil, and a ring of darker blue at the very edge of the iris.

She seemed to be waiting for something, some unknown cue, unknown to Sandor, at least. Without looking away, he reached down and set his glass on the coffee table, before lifting one hand to the back of her neck, beneath the thick mane of red tresses. When his hand settled on her skin, she sighed slightly, and leaned back towards him, her eyes falling closed again.

The second kiss was deeper, more fulfilling but still leaving Sandor aching for more. With a quick movement, she was straddling his hips. Sandor’s other hand rested high on Sansa’s thigh, at the apex where her hips opened up. Sansa murmured against his lips as the second kiss turned into the third, the fourth, and after that Sandor lost count.

At any moment, he expected to open his eyes and find he had been dreaming. It wasn’t just that he could hardly believe he was engaging in very enthusiastic tonsil hockey with a gorgeous woman who also happened to be an engaging writer he admired, and let’s be honest, had fantasized about. It wasn’t just his incredulity that she had picked him, seemingly out of a crowd, to let take her home, that made it feel unreal. It was everything. The entire contents of the last four hours seemed to belong to somebody else’s life. Things like this just didn’t happen to him.

Sansa’s hips were grinding against his, tantalizing him with their friction, making him painfully aware of how long it had been since he’d been in such a position, literally and figuratively. Fuck, had it really been two whole years? His cock eagerly assured him that it had been.

Sandor tried to wrench his thoughts away from the sad state of his love life and back to the present, where a very beautiful, very passionate woman was currently riding his hips, head thrown back as she gasped in air, providing Sandor with the opportunity to apply his lips to the soft skin of her neck.  _ Fool, _ he thought to himself, _ stop wondering why this is happening and enjoy it _ .

Good advice, he decided, and banished the doubting thoughts away for now. He let his hands wander down her body, cupping the round globes of her ass. Sansa laughed, a short, choppy bark of a sound before tilting her head down once more to kiss him again.

“Bedroom?” she asked the next time she came up for air.

“Upstairs.”

Sansa moved her hands to the back of the couch and the arm, leaning into him and their kiss, not breaking contact as she moved to stand up. When she did break the kiss, she lingered above him for a moment longer, giving Sandor a glimpse down the front of her jumpsuit, which presented quite the gap in her current position.

She straightened and headed to the stairs opposite the front door. Sandor scrambled up to follow her, bending over to pick up her shoes before climbing the stairs behind her. At the top, Sansa looked around, considering the three doors. Sandor pointed to the far left.

Sansa opened the door, looking about the room. It was a fairly plain room, just the king-sized bed, a necessity for his height, and a dresser. The top of the dresser was littered with spare change, watches that he traded out depending on his mood, ties and cufflinks for special occasions, spare reading glasses and cases. Sansa trailed her fingers over these items casually, entirely at her ease in her surroundings. Sandor realized he liked that about her, how well she seemed to fit here.

He flicked on a bedside lamp and shut the door, then dropped her shoes onto the floor.

“Why did you bring my shoes?” she asked, walking to the window to look out at the backyard. Sandor crossed and stood behind her, pulling the curtain across when she turned and put her arms around his waist.

“Stranger. He can be a bastard, I don’t want him deciding they’re a chew toy or his litter box.”

“What about your shoes?”

Sandor shrugged. “He knows who feeds him.”

Sansa chuckled, and reached up to his neck, beginning to loosen his neck tie. Her movements were slow and deliberate, and Sandor found them very arousing. Once the tie was loose, she pulled the end out of it, taking the time to undo the knot, though she just let the silky fabric slip through her fingers to the ground when she was finished. Next, she grabbed his shirt at the waist, tugging it up until it was untucked from his pants. Starting at the top, she undid each button slowly. Sandor contemplated speeding up her work by starting from the bottom and meeting her in the middle, but found that he was enjoying being undressed too much to try to hurry it up.

With the shirt undone, she pushed it back off of his shoulders, and it too fell to the floor, abandoned for the moment. With the same deliberate motions, Sansa added his belt and slacks to the growing pile, so that Sandor stood in front of her in just his boxer briefs. Now that Sansa had almost run out of clothes, he decided it was his turn.

He reached up to her neck, fingers gently and slowly pushing the collar of her jumpsuit over and off her shoulders. The sleeves stuck on her forearm, so he loosed the fabric from where it was bunched.

When the top finally slid free, Sandor sucked in a small breath. “Beautiful” didn’t even begin to describe her, and really felt very pedestrian. He lingered for a moment, staring at her softly rounded shoulders, the delicate architecture of her collarbones, the perfect slope of her breasts, capped by dusky red nipples, then to her ribcage, which gracefully curved down to her waist. The rest of her body was still clad in the jumpsuit, but he was sure it was perfect, too.

“Seven help me,” he muttered, not even realizing it was aloud until she responded.

“Are you ok?” she asked in a hushed, conspiratorial whisper that made him laugh.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he muttered, hands on her waist.

She shrugged. “I know.”

He laughed, the awkward tension of the moment dispelled. “I’m sure you are, and I’m glad to hear it.”

She reached down and pushed the jumpsuit down past her hips, stepping out of them neatly. Sandor stared at her long, slender legs, a thin pair of pale pink panties her only remaining stitch of clothing.

“I feel like I should tell you it has been a… long time since I’ve been with a woman,” Sandor said, gazing down at her soft skin, gleaming golden in the lamplight.

Sansa frowned slightly. “And why is this? You obviously enjoy women,” she said in a light, almost teasing tone as she trailed her fingers up his sides. He twitched slightly at the tickling sensation.

“Well, that’s kind of a complicated question. You’re right, I do ‘enjoy’ women. My last girlfriend and I broke up two years ago when she decided to take a teaching position in Oldtown, and meeting women has never really been my strong suit, for some reason.”

“You talk a lot,” she chided him gently, neatly side-stepping Sandor. He turns to follow her with his eyes.

“Occupational hazard, I guess,” he muttered. “I just wanted to warn you I may not - umm - live up to your expectations.”

“I’m sure I’ll be satisfied,” she almost purred, taking another step closer to the bed. His bed, where he slept alone every night, and occasionally indulged in his solo  _ urges _ , now had a blindingly beautiful woman kneeling on it, feet tucked under her bottom, knees spread slightly apart.

Sandor crossed the two steps to the bed in a second, as Sansa raised herself up on her knees to meet him, Sandor standing at the foot of the bed, slightly hunched to kiss her. He felt like a completely different version of himself suddenly, the kind of man who knew what he was doing, knew instinctively what to do with his hands (one in her hair, one on the small of her back), how to kiss her, when to push her back against the bed so he could lie on top of her. Was this a new facet of himself, or something that had always been there? He ignored the question, tried as hard as he could to block out all higher brain function (and neurotic first-person narrator) as he continued on impulse, kissing his way from lips to neck to breasts.

After giving careful and thorough attention to her nipples, to the chorus of Sansa’s appreciative moans, he tread further downward, trying to suppress his nerves as he slipped his fingers under the band of her underwear. Sansa pushed her hips up from the bed so Sandor could tug the slips of silky fabric down her hips and off her legs, dropping them unnoticed to the floor as Sansa let her legs fall open. Sandor knelt between her knees, staring down at the apex of her thighs.

A cloud of coppery curls covered her mound. He reached out and ran his hand over them, marveling at how soft they felt, the reddish tint he’d never seen before on a woman. He slipped one finger between her lips, spreading them gently, surprised and gratified to find how wet she already was. First one, then two fingers slipped inside her. Sansa sighed.

_ This isn’t really happening _ , Sandor thought suddenly as he knelt beneath her legs, tongue extending to lap at her, swirling once through the collection of her fluids that tasted salty and tangy and slightly musky.  _ I’m going to wake up any minute, shorts soaked. _

He swirled his tongue over her clit, Sansa’s hips bucking towards him. He glanced up at her, at her head thrown back, back slightly arched. She peeked down at him with a wicked glint in her eyes. Sandor blushed until she looked away, the prolonged eye contact intense and unexpected. He felt her hand settle on the back of his head, her fingers anchoring themselves in his hair.

He lost himself then in the rhythm of his tongue on her clit, fingers slipping in and out, curling against her front walls as his ex had patiently taught him, gently, like scratching beneath Stranger’s chin. Sansa’s moans became more frequent, her hips jumping beneath him until he gently held her with his free hand on her hip. Her cries reached a breathy peak, her walls clenching and releasing around his fingers as her pelvis jumped beneath him, slowing as he reduced his pace, until he was gently lapping at her, more at her entrance than her clit, tasting the warm, slow rush of her juices there.

Sansa tugged at him and he pushed up quickly, not wanting to overstay his welcome. He grinned at her as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Sansa pulled him down to her, legs tightening around his waist. He moaned against her lips as she kissed him, her core rubbing against his cock, maddeningly stimulating even through the thin fabric of his shorts. He’d gotten a brief respite while seeing to her needs, a chance for his cock to calm down and even soften slightly, but his full and complete erection had bounced back quickly, and he once again worried about his stamina that evening.

“I think you’ll find that works better if you let me take off my shorts,” he murmured when she broke the kiss.

She chuckled, a low, throaty sound that affected him in deep and feral ways. She released her hold on his waist so he could push up onto his knees, thrusting his boxer briefs down, wiggling his knees out of the leg holes until he could kick them onto the floor. He reached over to the nightstand drawer, hoping like hell that his condoms were still good. He’d bought some a year ago to replace the old ones, though he didn’t think he’d even opened the box.

He cursed the manufacturers of condoms as Sansa’s slim hand closed around his shaft, driving a pleasurable shudder down his spine.  _ Focus _ . First the plastic wrapping, then the paperboard box, which he all but ripped through, then the foil package of the individual condom. Sansa took the package from him, deftly freeing the little circle of latex and expertly unrolling it down his cock. He’d never had a woman perform this service; it’d always been strictly under his own governance, and he enjoyed the novel sensation.

He paused for a moment above her, taking in the sight of her, cheeks flushed, eyes dark and hooded, red hair spilling out over the pillow ( _ my pillow _ ! part of him exclaimed, and another part responded  _ yes, we get it, it’s your bed, your pillow, your cock! Get on with it! _ ). Her lips parted to let her tongue peek out, wetting her lips so seductively Sandor thought his brain would suffer a cataclysmic software crash.

“Sandor, you’re killing me. Stop staring at me with that dopey look.”

He snapped sharply back to reality. “I can’t help it, you licked your lips. I almost died.”

She arched one eyebrow. “I’m tempted to do it again, but I don’t want to give you a heart attack. Can we um- progress, though?”

He settled onto his knees and elbows, guiding the head of his cock to her entrance. He pushed in with little resistance, she was still so wet and pliable from her first orgasm. For once, he was glad for the slight dulling effect of the condom. Otherwise he probably would have burst at that first thrust, when he was fully inside her. His hips bumped against her clit and her walls reflexively tightened around him. He dropped his head against her neck, moaning softly.

Sansa wrapped her arms around his beck, one hand on his shoulder, the other on his lower back. “I like that,” she whispered breathily.

“What?” he instinctively froze, as though he needed to make sure what it was so he could do it again.

Sansa giggled in his ear. “When you moan. You stopped moving again, though.”

“Oh yeah. I think I remember this part.”

“Like riding a dragon, right?” she chuckled, morphing the sound into a moan as he withdrew, thrust back into her.

“You know, you keep saying  _ I’m _ strange…” he broke off, as though realizing the same thing she did a moment before she said it.

“Is this really the time? I usually don’t let men discuss my quirks while they’re inside me.”

“It’s keeping me from finishing too soon,” he groaned, as Sansa shifted her hips farther up his waist, arching her back. She rolled to her right, and Sandor followed, until he was lying flat on his back, Sansa straddling his hips.

“Then by all means, prattle on. I’ll just tune you out.” She guided his hand to her pelvis, directing his thumb to stroke her clit as she started to rock her hips, a smooth back-and-forth motion, her tits bouncing prettily. Sansa grabbed his other hand and lifted it to cup her breast.

“That is not helping,” Sandor groaned, but concentrated on rubbing her clit, to fend off his swiftly approaching orgasm. He started thrusting up to meet the downward shift of her hips, and was rewarded with a deep moan, a look of sweet concentration furrowing her brow. Just a little more, he thought, moments before she shuddered, one last breathy cry torn from her lips as her walls quaked around him. Two more thrusts and Sandor let loose, grunting at the release that flooded over him as he came.

Sansa fell forward onto his chest, boneless and pliant. Sandor stared up at the ceiling, listening to their breath slow, feeling his heart rate come back to normal. Sansa snuggled into his chest as Sandor felt his soft cock slip from between her legs. Sansa’s breathing slowed, deepened, turned into a low, steady snore.

He peeked down at her face as best he could and confirmed that the gorgeous and intelligent best-selling author had indeed fallen asleep on his chest, legs still straddling his hips.

Sandor sat up, lifting Sansa with him, who barely twitched. He carefully stood, one arm under her bum to keep her from falling. Her legs tightened around him, but she didn’t stir. He pulled back the covers from the bed, then sat down again. Before lying back down, he reached down and pulled the used condom from his cock, dropping it into the trashcan by the bed.

Once he was lying down under the covers, he turned on his side, gently tipping Sansa onto the bed beside him, still clinging to his chest. Sandor thought he could get used to that, though, as well as the deep, peaceful sound of her breathing. Sandor made sure she was covered by the blanket, and reached back to switch off the lamp. As soon as he turned back from the bed, Sansa buried her face just a little deeper in his neck, the top of her head just tucking under his chin. Sandor wrapped his other arm around her protectively, falling asleep far faster than he’d thought he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awww, they're tuckered out. They had a long day, little dears.
> 
> Hope you liked it! I have like a tiny idea of where this is going.


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